Ong Butrdee

This propensity for accepting challenges has seen Ong employed in jobs as diverse as contract cleaning and window cleaning in full abseiling gear. Although many in Hua Hin know that he is one of the real driving forces behind the Pranporpiang organic farm, even people who have used his services and products over many years now will probably be unaware that Ong is actually a commercial pilot based out of Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok and captains a full roster of medium- haul flights both internally in Thailand but also to other Asian locations. This employment fizzled out during the Covid pandemic but gave him the ability to work on his vision for Pranporpiang. One side benefit of his job as a pilot is that Ong can ensure an even greater wealth of experience for the next generation of his family, and others in his circle. He is a man with a highly developed social conscience and is focused on improving the living standard of everyone in his local community.  More on that later.

Another marker of Ong’s ability to tackle challenge face first was his reaction to the tsunami which impacted so much of southern Thailand in December 2004. Although it took him some days to accept that the devastation he saw in the media was in fact real, It was seeing Dr Poornthip, a forensic pathologist, say that more help was desperately needed that spurred him into action.  He caught the free flight offered by Thai Airways from Don Mueang to Phuket, then a van to Krabi, ending up in Phang Nga. There he spent days and weeks moving the corpses of the deceased into and out of refrigerated storage in body bags, assisted in the mass burial of some only to then have to take part in their exhumation.  I can only imagine how torturous and gruelling this volunteer work must have been, and Ong stayed until he was ordered to rest by the counsellors who saw that he was on the brink of collapse, having expended nearly all of his physical, mental and emotional energies.

Ong has a Bachelor’s Degree from the Humanities Faculty at Ramkhamhaeng University, with majors in English and mass communication.  He inherited his creativity and musicality from his mother and his enquiring, scientific mind from his father and his comprehension of the primary importance of education from both of them.  Deep within Ong beats the heart of a pioneer, perhaps initially discovered on his year-long adventure in the US before undertaking his university studies.  Ong told me about his “pursuit of happiness” and the tangled path he followed to find his true profession in the aviation industry, yet I sense that his time in Montana with his first host family had an even more profound effect on his path to finding what he really desired from life, as he lists that particular two-storey white ranch home, along with his village, as his favourite places in the world. He fondly recalled the compassionate but intensive home-schooling English lessons his host Mum gave him, that finally had him pronouncing the sounds “sh” and “ch” correctly.  To this day, Ong is able to acknowledge and celebrate each little win, each little step forward. In all, Ong spent a full year bravely studying in Montana and Colorado, improving his English proficiency and developing his self-reliance, at quite a young age to be so far away from his parents and family.  His dad’s words of encouragement still ring in Ong’s ears, “Do it.  Complete it. Home is here for you, always.”

And since I first met and spoke to Ong at length about the Pranporpiang initiative some nine months ago now, there have been steps forward, along with difficulties to be faced and overcome, but Ong and his management team, whom he names “my knights” are meeting these head-on.  I have been able to keep abreast of the achievements that have been made by following Pranporpiang on Facebook.  Ong is a most skilled user of a number of social media platforms because he is cognisant of the need for outreach if he is to connect with the whole of his village in the social enterprise of his vision, where the skills and the potential of each individual are properly utilised to bring the fulfillment of sufficiency to the entire community. All this is in keeping with the teachings of King Rama IX, perhaps the most powerful influence on Ong’s vision, although he lists others including Einstein and Elon Musk.  Ong is a most divergent thinker.

The local flooding of Ong’s village in 2022 has been the catalyst for the expanding of Pranporpiang, which is currently underway, with a new site added to the initiative. This will see the production component split from the social and business development parts of the enterprise.  A side-step will see a move into Eco-Agro tourism along with the development of a botanic garden, a first for the local area.  Ong and his knights don’t just think big, they think enormous, and outside the box.  Everyone on social media will hear a lot more about the new Pranporpiang over the coming months as each phase of the reimagined development is ready for launch.  It is a very exciting time indeed.